Norfolk Dresses Up Mall Design

Macarthur Center Plan Accents `Fasion Retail'

September 19, 1996|By PHILANA PATTERSON Daily Press

NORFOLK — MacArthur Center developer Taubman Centers Inc. and the city of Norfolk unveiled updated drawings of the proposed downtown mall Wednesday that show street-level shops, more entrances for pedestrians and more space for landscaping around the mammoth structure.

The company revised the plans partly in response to criticism that the original design resembled a suburban shopping center and thus was inappropriate for an urban setting.

Norfolk design consultant Raymond Gindroz, a managing principal of UDA Architects of Pittsburgh, said the latest changes show a retail center that will give Norfolk a "five-star shopping experience."

The upscale mall - with anchor stores Nordstrom and Dillard's and about 120 specialty stores, many new to the area - will make MacArthur Center and Norfolk the "singular fashion retail address" in Hampton Roads, said Taubman senior vice president John Simon.

Taubman and the city are counting on the mall to attract tourists and draw shoppers from the Peninsula and the rest of Hampton Roads.

The mall's backers offered a telephone poll of 500 Hampton Roads residents as proof that the center will draw the crowds it needs to be successful. According to the survey, conducted by Consumer Research Corp. of Minneapolis, 61 percent said they visited downtown Norfolk in the past year and 47 percent said they would probably or definitely shop at MacArthur Center once a month or more. About 30 percent of the respondents were from the Peninsula.

Site work already has begun for the mall, and it should open in fall 1998 or spring 1999, Simon said. A third anchor still has not signed onto the project.

Now that the company has presented plans it believes will provide an active retail, historic and civic atmosphere, Simon said, the business community and the people who objected to the original plan should start working to revitalize other parts of downtown Norfolk, such as Granby Street.

"They could remove existing buildings or provide incentives to redevelop them," Simon said. "They should have started six months ago."

But some critics who had drawn up alternate designs feel the company still hasn't done enough to make the mall fit into the city.

"It's a shame that they don't think the work we did was worth anything," said David Levy, a Navy architect.

The changes to the plans will increase MacArthur Center's cost, though Simon couldn't say exactly how much. He said the mall's final price tag will be well over $300 million, including the money retailers put into finishing their stores.